A Different Seal
by Uzumaki Clan Leader
Summary: Minato uses a different seal that fateful night, and lives to see his son grow up. Find out what effect this one change can have.
1. Chapter 1

(A/N: Oops, I forgot a disclaimer previously! Well, I'll add it now.)

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Technically, I don't even own any techniques and possibly OCs that I add, since they're not copyrighted.**

(Is that enough?)

"Step away from the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, Yondaime Hokage."  
This was the situation Minato Namikaze found himself in. On one hand, the seal keeping the Kyuubi contained in his wife was weakening, and it needed to be fixed or risk the Kyuubi escaping. On the other hand, the masked man was holding his newborn son hostage, a kunai at his throat, ready to end his life at a moment's notice. "Hey! Just calm down, will you?" he shouted.

"Speak for yourself, Yondaime. I am quite calm." the masked man said.  
Minato was stumped. Should he rescue his newborn and risk widespread loss of life due to the seal breaking, or should he fix the seal and see his newborn get killed? The masked man then decided to act. "If you cannot decide, then I will decide for you!" he said as he tossed Naruto up into the air and tried to stab him, only for Minato to flash to him, grab him, and flash back to the ground. "Very good, you are as fast as the stories say, but how will you deal with the next one?" the masked man said, and Minato could swear he was smirking under that damnable mask. He then heard sizzling. 'Uh oh,' he thought. Acting quickly, he flashed outside the nursery and tore off the blanket with the exploding tags on it, throwing it as far away as possible. He then tucked Naruto in the crib, "Don't worry Naruto, daddy will be right back."  
Meanwhile, the masked man had grabbed Kushina, and teleporting to a distant location, began to extract the Kyuubi from her. Once he had successfully extracted it, he put it under his genjutsu.

"Wait..."croaked Kushina. "What do you want?"  
The masked man chuckled. "To have survived the extraction of a tailed beast... I underestimated you Uzumaki. I think I'll have the Kyuubi kill you first." The Kyuubi raised it's massive paw, and sent it crashing towards Kushina. When the dust lifted, Kushina was not a splat on the ground, but was in Minato's arms, off to the side. He narrowed his eyes at the masked man, before flashing off to the nursery once again. This time, he placed Kushina next to Naruto. "I'll take care of this, don't worry." he declared determinedly. Then he flashed back to the village.  
When he got there, the first thing he saw was a biiju bomb headed straight for the village. He went through a few hand seals, muttering "Space-Time Barrier." A swirl with kanji coming outwards from it in multiple directions appeared in front of the biiju bomb, and when the biiju bomb hit it, it was teleported to the nearby forest, where it exploded. It was at this time that the masked man decided to show himself, appearing right behind Minato. Minato sensed him, and quickly turned around while slashing with a kunai. While it would've hit and killed most people, the masked man was obviously not most people. Instead, the kunai went right through the man's head, and once it was all the way through, the man grabbed Minato's arm and tried to suck him into his personal dimension. However, Minato was fast enough to flash out of the way. 'Strange...let's try this again.' he thought. The masked man took a chain and strapped each cuff on each of his wrists, leaving the chain behind him. They charged at each other again, and Minato once again phased straight through him, and was almost wrapped up in his chains before he once again flashed out of the way. 'So he has to be tangible to attack, looks like I'll just have to be faster and attack right before he does.' he thought analytically. This time, When they once again charged Minato threw a kunai towards the masked man, but when he was about to get caught, he flashed to the kunai, and slammed a Rasengan into the man's back. When the man got up painfully, Minato flashed to him and put a hand on him.  
"A contract seal?" asked the man. "Yes," replied Minato, "the Kyuubi is now no longer under your control."

"Interesting… it appears as if I underestimated you, Yondaime. Injuring me is no easy feat," mused the masked man, "just remember that I will be back."

"There's only one man that I know of that was powerful enough to control the Kyuubi," thought Minato. "Wait," he said, "are you Madara Uchiha?"

"I was once known by that name." said the masked man, before teleporting away.

"Shit, this is bad," thought Minato, "he's Madara? How is he even alive?" His thoughts were cut off by a roar from the Kyuubi. "I'll have to worry about it later."

Flashing back to the nursery, he took Naruto, apologizing to Kushina. "I'm sorry Kushina, but I'm going to have to seal the Kyuubi into Naruto." "No!" cried Kushina, "I'll reseal it into myself!" Minato cut her off before she could continue, "I have a bad feeling about that man. To take him down, we'll need a lot of power, and I believe Naruto can eventually learn to control the Kyuubi's power," cutting off any further discussion, and Kushina reluctantly agreed.

Flashing once again back to the battlefield, Minato went through a few hand seals, before shouting, "Summoning: Food Cart Destroyer Jutsu!" Suddenly, Gamabunta appeared in the air above the Kyuubi, and fell on top on him, restraining him. The Kyuubi, furious at the giant toad sitting on him, started lashing out with his tails. One hit Gamabunta in the eye and gave him a nasty cut.

"Grr…damn fox," said the toad.

Fortunately for Minato, Gamabunta gave him enough time to hiraishin him out of the village and over to where Kushina and Naruto were. "Thanks Bunta, I owe you one. You can leave if you wish." he said right before he flashed away.

When he got there, Kushina summoned some of her chakra chains and quickly restrained the Kyuubi while Minato readied a seal. "I'm going to use a new seal I've been working on," said Minato. Once the preparations were finished, he placed the seal on Naruto's stomach and activated it with a few hand seals, shouting "Sealing Jutsu: Nature Binding Seal!" The seal started glowing brightly for a few moments, before thick tendrils of green chakra reached out from it and started to drag the Kyuubi into the seal. After a few tense moments, the sealing was complete and Minato slammed a hand onto the seal, calling out "Nature Binding Seal: Seal!"

It was over. The Kyuubi had been sealed, and Konoha had lived to see another day.

(A/N: Hey guys! This is my first fanfic, so feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!)


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Hey everyone! I'm back with another chapter! To answer some of the questions in the reviews: to the people asking if Kushina will live, well, read on to find out :D; to Bankai777, no, Naruto will not have Mokuton. I'm tired of Naruto always needing a bloodline to be strong. Now on to the story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Technically, I don't own any techniques I add or possibly and OCs I might add, as they're not copyrighted.

"Somebody get a medic!"

Minato was worried. Very worried. His wife, after all, just got her tailed beast extracted, and was in bad condition. She may be an Uzumaki, but even they can't get a tailed beast extracted an come out of it without a scratch. Thankfully, the medics arrived soon and started to heal her.

"Stabilize the vitals!"

"Crap," thought Minato, "she's in worse condition than I thought."

About 15 minutes later, though, the medics were finished. "Kushina-sama will live," one of them started, as Minato heaved a huge sigh of relief, "but she will be in a coma for a while. There was severe damage to her chakra system from having the Kyuubi forcibly torn out. Thanks to her Uzumaki healing factor, though, it healed slightly. That small bit was what saved her. We've done all we could. However, she may lose the ability to use chakra. She may retain that ability. We're not sure."

"Thank Kami she will live," thought Minato. "Thank you," he said to the medics, "now go. You have other people to heal from the attack, no?" "Yes sir!" they replied, before heading out.

-A few hours later-

Minato walked into the council room carrying Naruto.

"Hokage-sama, it's good to see that you're alright. When you teleported the Kyuubi into the barrier, we feared-" one of the councilmen started.

"That I would sacrifice myself to defeat the Kyuubi? A few months ago, yes. But I recently discovered a different way to defeat it without the need to sacrifice myself." Minato said.

"Would you mind sharing with us how?" asked another councilman.

"Who here knows what a Jinchuriki is?" asked Minato. Not many people raised their hands, and those who did were all shinobi.

"I'm sorry Hokage-sama, but what does this have to do with the Kyuubi?" said a councilwoman.

"A Jinchuriki is…someone who has a tailed beast sealed inside of them," came the grave reply.

A few murmurs went through the council. Eventually one spoke up, "So are you saying that you sealed the Kyuubi inside that…child?"

"Yes."

"Then we must eliminate it! Kill it before it can destroy us all!"

Minato slammed his hand down on the table. "Enough! My son is a hero, and will be treated as such!"

The council was stunned. "Did you say…your son?" said one councilman. "But I thought you never married!" said another.

At this, Minato had no choice but to reveal the secret marriage between him and Kushina, though he was planning to soon anyways. "And besides," he added, "he looks just like me! How can you not tell?"

The civilians had the decency to look ashamed at this.

"Besides," continued Minato, "it's obvious that none of you calling for his death understand sealing at all. So let me explain the seal to you. The seal is one that I've made recently. In the case of the Kyuubi, it seals it into Naruto here, while drawing in nature energy to reinforce it. Most seals have a weakness of naturally weakening over time, but, as you can tell, this does not. Also, before you go saying that the Kyuubi is going to corrupt Naruto, Naruto can block out the Kyuubi if he wishes, and he must meet the Kyuubi first before they can speak to each other, which will most likely not happen for years. Besides, do you all really have such little faith in your Fourth Hokage that you would believe me to design such a poor seal that would let the Kyuubi take over Naruto?!"

This got through to the civilian council. "I apologize, Hokage-sama." said one member.

"Apology accepted. Just please don't call for someone's death so rashly," replied Minato.

"Yes Hokage-sama," replied the council member.

-1 Year Later-

Kushina gasped as she awoke. She looked around frantically, thinking "Where am I? What happened?" All she could remember was the masked man extracting the Kyuubi, the Kyuubi attacking Konoha, and-"Naruto!" she shouted, alerting the medics that she had woken up. "Kushina-Sama!" one of them shouted as he entered the room, "You're awake!"

She smiled at him. "How long have I been out?" "You were in a coma for about a year after the night of the Kyuubi attack," came the prompt reply.

"Are Minato and Naruto ok? What happened-" she was cut off as Minato flashed into the room, holding Naruto.

"Kushina!" he shouted. "I heard you woke up, and I came as soon as I could! Are you ok? Are you feeling well? Are-" he was cut off by Kushina. "Yes, Minato, I'm fine. You can stop worrying so much."

"But you just-"

"Minato. I said I'm fine."

Minato reluctantly backed off from his interrogation. "Fine, if you say so," as Naruto started crying and reaching towards Kushina. "Oh?" said Minato. "Looks like Naruto wants you," he said, handing Naruto over to Kushina, who began to rock him and whisper soothing words to him, "Hush now, Naruto. Your mother is here now."

While rocking Naruto, Kushina asked Minato, "What happened while I was out?"

At this, Minato sighed. "Most of the villagers see Naruto as a hero like I asked, but some insist on trying to harm Naruto."

Kushina was furious. "Why, when I get my hands on them, I'll-" "I've kept him safe. There's no need to worry," "But they-" "Can't harm him while I'm protecting him."

"Also, the Uchiha have been getting pushier. I'm trying to talk it out, but it's not working as well as I'd hope."

Kushina frowned. "Then Mikoto-" "is completely against everything," interjected Minato.

Kushina gave a sigh of relief. "What do you plan on doing about it?"

"Honestly, I have no idea," sighed Minato, "I'm at my wit's end."

"I'm sure Mikoto will take care of it," assured Kushina. "She's always been good at this stuff."

"Maybe so, but I can't help but feel like something terrible will happen…" mused Minato. "But enough of this negative stuff!" he exclaimed, "you're finally awake! And that's what's important!"

Kushina smiled. The family was finally whole once again, and that was what mattered.


End file.
